h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If homo sapien was a migratory species at the time and Mammoths happened to travel through territory inhabited by non-migratory Neanderthals, wouldn't the men avoid this territory, two "predators" after the same prey usually causes conflict - find neanderthal territories and you might well find places homo sapien would avoid.

That's an interesting thought, Whisky. I don't know the answer but in my searches I found this page. It looks interesting: http://www.neanderthal-modern.com/

That's a great url, I'll add it to the list. As I understand it the mammoth never realised that humans were their main predator. A bit like the elephant today. I don’t get the impression that poacher's in Africa find it at all difficult to kill them. Maybe because its not a mass extermination – more a creeping thing that happens day, by day, week by week, month by month and so on.

I was wondering... OK, there have been instances where stone-age tools have been found at the bottom of cliffs, mixed up with Mammouth bones which appear to have been arranged - post butchering. (In the Channel Islands) so we know man did on ocassion hunt mammoths. But, is there any real proof that man was really responsible for the extinction of the mammoths... I can't really see neolithic man making an enormous dent in a healthy population of animals... After all, elephants survived pretty well until the advent of hunting with rifles?

whisky

Probably best to point you to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/plain/F104325?thread=226516 This conversation takes off from Peter D. Ward's devestating conclusion in his book:Call of Distant Mammoths, which I thought was very good. Richard